The Kicking Twelfth

The Spitzbergen army was backed by tradition of centuries of victory. In
its chronicles, occasional defeats were not printed in italics, but were
likely to appear as glorious stands against overwhelming odds. A
favourite way to dispose of them was frankly to attribute them to the
blunders of the civilian heads of government. This was very good for the
army, and probably no army had more self-confidence. When it was
announced that an expeditionary force was to be sent to Rostina to
chastise an impudent people, a hundred barrack squares filled with
excited men, and a hundred sergeant-majors hurried silently through the
groups, and succeeded in looking as if they were the repositories of the
secrets of empire. Officers on leave sped joyfully back to their
harness, and recruits were abused with unflagging devotion by every man,
from colonels to privates of experience.

The Twelfth Regiment of the Line—the Kicking Twelfth—was consumed with
a dread that it was not to be included in the expedition, and the
regiment formed itself into an informal indignation meeting. Just as
they had proved that a great outrage was about to be perpetrated,
warning orders arrived to hold themselves in readiness for active
service abroad—in Rostina. The barrack yard was in a flash transferred
into a blue-and-buff pandemonium, and the official bugle itself hardly
had power to quell the glad disturbance.

Thus it was that early in the spring the Kicking Twelfth—sixteen
hundred men in service equipment—found itself crawling along a road in
Rostina. They did not form part of the main force, but belonged to a
column of four regiments of foot, two batteries of field guns, a battery
of mountain howitzers, a regiment of horse, and a company of engineers.
Nothing had happened. The long column had crawled without amusement of
any kind through a broad green valley. Big white farm-houses dotted the
slopes; but there was no sign of man or beast, and no smoke from the
chimneys. The column was operating from its own base, and its general
was expected to form a junction with the main body at a given point.

A squadron of the cavalry was fanned out ahead, scouting, and day by day
the trudging infantry watched the blue uniforms of the horsemen as they
came and went. Sometimes there would sound the faint thuds of a few
shots, but the cavalry was unable to find anything to engage.

The Twelfth had no record of foreign service, and it could hardly be
said that it had served as a unit in the great civil war, when His
Majesty the King had whipped the Pretender. At that time the regiment
had suffered from two opinions, so that it was impossible for either
side to depend upon it. Many men had deserted to the standard of the
Pretender, and a number of officers had drawn their swords for him. When
the King, a thorough soldier, looked at the remnant, he saw that they
lacked the spirit to be of great help to him in the tremendous battles
which he was waging for his throne. And so this emaciated Twelfth was
sent off to a corner of the kingdom to guard a dockyard, where some of
the officers so plainly expressed their disapproval of this policy that
the regiment received its steadfast name, the Kicking Twelfth.

At the time of which I am writing the Twelfth had a few veteran officers
and well-bitten sergeants; but the body of the regiment was composed of
men who had never heard a shot fired excepting on the rifle-range. But
it was an experience for which they longed, and when the moment came for
the corps' cry—"Kim up, the Kickers"—there was not likely to be a man
who would not go tumbling after his leaders.

Young Timothy Lean was a second lieutenant in the first company of the
third battalion, and just at this time he was pattering along at the
flank of the men, keeping a fatherly lookout for boots that hurt and
packs that sagged. He was extremely bored. The mere far-away sound of
desultory shooting was not war as he had been led to believe it.

It did not appear that behind that freckled face and under that red hair
there was a mind which dreamed of blood. He was not extremely anxious to
kill somebody, but he was very fond of soldiering—it had been the
career of his father and of his grandfather—and he understood that the
profession of arms lost much of its point unless a man shot at people
and had people shoot at him. Strolling in the sun through a practically
deserted country might be a proper occupation for a divinity student on
a vacation, but the soul of Timothy Lean was in revolt at it. Some times
at night he would go morosely to the camp of the cavalry and hear the
infant subalterns laughingly exaggerate the comedy side of the
adventures which they had had out with small patrols far ahead. Lean
would sit and listen in glum silence to these tales, and dislike the
young officers—many of them old military school friends—for having had
experience in modern warfare.

"Anyhow," he said savagely, "presently you'll be getting into a lot of
trouble, and then the Foot will have to come along and pull you out. We
always do. That's history."

"Oh, we can take care of ourselves," said the Cavalry, with good-natured
understanding of his mood.

But the next day even Lean blessed the cavalry, for excited troopers
came whirling back from the front, bending over their speeding horses,
and shouting wildly and hoarsely for the infantry to clear the way. Men
yelled at them from the roadside as courier followed courier, and from
the distance ahead sounded in quick succession six booms from field
guns. The information possessed by the couriers was no longer precious.
Everybody knew what a battery meant when it spoke. The bugles cried out,
and the long column jolted into a halt. Old Colonel Sponge went bouncing
in his saddle back to see the general, and the regiment sat down in the
grass by the roadside, and waited in silence. Presently the second
squadron of the cavalry trotted off along the road in a cloud of dust,
and in due time old Colonel Sponge came bouncing back, and palavered his
three majors and his adjutant. Then there was more talk by the majors,
and gradually through the correct channels spread information which in
due time reached Timothy Lean.

The enemy, 5000 strong, occupied a pass at the head of the valley some
four miles beyond. They had three batteries well posted. Their infantry
was entrenched. The ground in their front was crossed and lined with
many ditches and hedges; but the enemy's batteries were so posted that
it was doubtful if a ditch would ever prove convenient as shelter for
the Spitzbergen infantry.

There was a fair position for the Spitzbergen artillery 2300 yards from
the enemy. The cavalry had succeeded in driving the enemy's skirmishers
back upon the main body; but, of course, had only tried to worry them a
little. The position was almost inaccessible on the enemy's right, owing
to steep hills, which had been crowned by small parties of infantry. The
enemy's left, although guarded by a much larger force, was approachable,
and might be flanked. This was what the cavalry had to say, and it added
briefly a report of two troopers killed and five wounded.

Whereupon Major-General Richie, commanding a force of 7500 men of His
Majesty of Spitzbergen, set in motion, with a few simple words, the
machinery which would launch his army at the enemy. The Twelfth
understood the orders when they saw the smart young aide approaching old
Colonel Sponge, and they rose as one man, apparently afraid that they
would be late. There was a clank of accoutrements. Men shrugged their
shoulders tighter against their packs, and thrusting their thumbs
between their belts and their tunics, they wriggled into a closer fit
with regard to the heavy ammunition equipment. It is curious to note
that almost every man took off his cap, and looked contemplatively into
it as if to read a maker's name. Then they replaced their caps with
great care. There was little talking, and it was not observable that a
single soldier handed a token or left a comrade with a message to be
delivered in case he should be killed. They did not seem to think of
being killed; they seemed absorbed in a desire to know what would
happen, and how it would look when it was happening. Men glanced
continually at their officers in a plain desire to be quick to
understand the very first order that would be given; and officers looked
gravely at their men, measuring them, feeling their temper, worrying
about them.

A bugle called; there were sharp cries, and the Kicking Twelfth was off
to battle.

The regiment had the right of line in the infantry brigade, and the men
tramped noisily along the white road, every eye was strained ahead; but,
after all, there was nothing to be seen but a dozen farms—in short, a
country-side. It resembled the scenery in Spitzbergen; every man in the
Kicking Twelfth had often confronted a dozen such farms with a composure
which amounted to indifference. But still down the road came galloping
troopers, who delivered information to Colonel Sponge and then galloped
on. In time the Twelfth came to the top of a rise, and below them on
the plain was the heavy black streak of a Spitzbergen squadron, and
behind the squadron loomed the grey bare hill of the Rostina position.

There was a little of skirmish firing. The Twelfth reached a knoll,
which the officers easily recognised as the place described by the
cavalry as suitable for the Spitzbergen guns. The men swarmed up it in a
peculiar formation. They resembled a crowd coming off a race track; but,
nevertheless, there was no stray sheep. It was simply that the ground on
which actual battles are fought is not like a chess board. And after
them came swinging a six-gun battery, the guns wagging from side to side
as the long line turned out of the road, and the drivers using their
whips as the leading horses scrambled at the hill. The halted Twelfth
lifted its voice and spoke amiably, but with point, to the battery.

"Go on, Guns! We'll take care of you. Don't be afraid. Give it to them!"
The teams—lead, swing and wheel—struggled and slipped over the steep
and uneven ground; and the gunners, as they clung to their springless
positions, wore their usual and natural airs of unhappiness. They made
no reply to the infantry. Once upon the top of the hill, however, these
guns were unlimbered in a flash, and directly the infantry could hear
the loud voice of an officer drawling out the time for fuses. A moment
later the first 3·2 bellowed out, and there could be heard the swish and
the snarl of a fleeting shell.

Colonel Sponge and a number of officers climbed to the battery's
position; but the men of the regiment sat in the shelter of the hill,
like so many blindfolded people, and wondered what they would have been
able to see if they had been officers. Sometimes the shells of the enemy
came sweeping over the top of the hill, and burst in great brown
explosions in the fields to the rear. The men looked after them and
laughed. To the rear could be seen also the mountain battery coming at a
comic trot, with every man obviously in a deep rage with every mule. If
a man can put in long service with a mule battery and come out of it
with an amiable disposition, he should be presented with a medal
weighing many ounces. After the mule battery came a long black winding
thing, which was three regiments of Spitzbergen infantry; and at the
backs of them and to the right was an inky square, which was the
remaining Spitzbergen guns. General Richie and his staff clattered up
the hill. The blindfolded Twelfth sat still. The inky square suddenly
became a long racing line. The howitzers joined their little bark to the
thunder of the guns on the hill, and the three regiments of infantry
came on. The Twelfth sat still.

Of a sudden a bugle rang its warning, and the officers shouted. Some
used the old cry, "Attention! Kim up, the Kickers!"—and the Twelfth
knew that it had been told to go on. The majority of the men expected to
see great things as soon as they rounded the shoulder of the hill; but
there was nothing to be seen save a complicated plain and the grey
knolls occupied by the enemy. Many company commanders in low voices
worked at their men, and said things which do not appear in the written
reports. They talked soothingly; they talked indignantly; and they
talked always like fathers. And the men heard no sentences completely;
they heard no specific direction, these wide-eyed men. They understood
that there was being delivered some kind of exhortation to do as they
had been taught, and they also understood that a superior intelligence
was anxious over their behaviour and welfare.

There was a great deal of floundering through hedges, climbing of walls
and jumping of ditches. Curiously original privates tried to find new
and easier ways for themselves, instead of following the men in front of
them. Officers had short fits of fury over these people. The more
originality they possessed, the more likely they were to become
separated from their companies. Colonel Sponge was making an exciting
progress on a big charger. When the first song of the bullets came from
above, the men wondered why he sat so high; the charger seemed as tall
as the Eiffel Tower. But if he was high in the air, he had a fine view,
and that supposedly is why people ascend the Eiffel Tower. Very often he
had been a joke to them, but when they saw this fat, old gentleman so
coolly treating the strange new missiles which hummed in the air, it
struck them suddenly that they had wronged him seriously; and a man who
could attain the command of a Spitzbergen regiment was entitled to
general respect. And they gave him a sudden, quick affection—an
affection that would make them follow him heartily, trustfully,
grandly—this fat, old gentleman, seated on a too-big horse. In a flash
his tousled grey head, his short, thick legs, even his paunch, had
become specially and humorously endeared to them. And this is the way of
soldiers.

But still the Twelfth had not yet come to the place where tumbling
bodies begin their test of the very heart of a regiment. They backed
through more hedges, jumped more ditches, slid over more walls. The
Rostina artillery had seemed to be asleep; but suddenly the guns aroused
like dogs from their kennels, and around the Twelfth there began a wild,
swift screeching. There arose cries to hurry, to come on; and, as the
rifle bullets began to plunge into them, the men saw the high,
formidable hills of the enemy's right, and perfectly understood that
they were doomed to storm them. The cheering thing was the sudden
beginning of a tremendous uproar on the enemy's left.

Every man ran, hard, tense, breathless. When they reached the foot of
the hills, they thought they had won the charge already, but they were
electrified to see officers above them waving their swords and yelling
with anger, surprise, and shame. With a long murmurous outcry the
Twelfth began to climb the hill; and as they went and fell, they could
hear frenzied shouts—"Kim up, the Kickers!" The pace was slow. It was
like the rising of a tide; it was determined, almost relentless in its
appearance, but it was slow. If a man fell there was a chance that he
would land twenty yards below the point where he was hit. The Kickers
crawled, their rifles in their left hands as they pulled and tugged
themselves up with their right hands. Ever arose the shout, "Kim up, the
Kickers!" Timothy Lean, his face flaming, his eyes wild, yelled it back
as if he were delivering the gospel.

The Kickers came up. The enemy—they had been in small force, thinking
the hills safe enough from attack—retreated quickly from this
preposterous advance, and not a bayonet in the Twelfth saw blood;
bayonets very seldom do.

The homing of this successful charge wore an unromantic aspect. About
twenty windless men suddenly arrived, and threw themselves upon the
crest of the hill, and breathed. And these twenty were joined by others,
and still others, until almost 1100 men of the Twelfth lay upon the
hilltop, while the regiment's track was marked by body after body, in
groups and singly. The first officer—perchance the first man, one never
can be certain—the first officer to gain the top of the hill was
Timothy Lean, and such was the situation that he had the honour to
receive his colonel with a bashful salute.

The regiment knew exactly what it had done; it did not have to wait to
be told by the Spitzbergen newspapers. It had taken a formidable
position with the loss of about five hundred men, and it knew it. It
knew, too, that it was great glory for the Kicking Twelfth; and as the
men lay rolling on their bellies, they expressed their joy in a wild
cry—"Kim up, the Kickers!" For a moment there was nothing but joy, and
then suddenly company commanders were besieged by men who wished to go
down the path of the charge and look for their mates. The answers were
without the quality of mercy; they were short, snapped, quick words,
"No; you can't."

The attack on the enemy's left was sounding in great rolling crashes.
The shells in their flight through the air made a noise as of red-hot
iron plunged into water, and stray bullets nipped near the ears of the
Kickers.

The Kickers looked and saw. The battle was below them. The enemy were
indicated by a long, noisy line of gossamer smoke, although there could
be seen a toy battery with tiny men employed at the guns. All over the
field the shrapnel was bursting, making quick bulbs of white smoke. Far
away, two regiments of Spitzbergen infantry were charging, and at the
distance this charge looked like a casual stroll. It appeared that small
black groups of men were walking meditatively toward the Rostina
entrenchments.

There would have been orders given sooner to the Twelfth, but
unfortunately Colonel Sponge arrived on top of the hill without a breath
of wind in his body. He could not have given an order to save the
regiment from being wiped off the earth. Finally he was able to gasp out
something and point at the enemy. Timothy Lean ran along the line
yelling to the men to sight at 800 yards; and like a slow and ponderous
machine the regiment again went to work. The fire flanked a great part
of the enemy's trenches.

It could be said that there were only two prominent points of view
expressed by the men after their victorious arrival on the crest. One
was defined in the exulting use of the corps' cry. The other was a
grief-stricken murmur which is invariably heard after a fight—"My God,
we're all cut to pieces!"

Colonel Sponge sat on the ground and impatiently waited for his wind to
return. As soon as it did, he arose and cried out, "Form up, and we'll
charge again! We will win this battle as soon as we can hit them!" The
shouts of the officers sounded wild, like men yelling on ship-board in a
gale. And the obedient Kickers arose for their task. It was running down
hill this time. The mob of panting men poured over the stones.

But the enemy had not been blind to the great advantage gained by the
Twelfth, and they now turned upon them a desperate fire of small arms.
Men fell in every imaginable way, and their accoutrements rattled on the
rocky ground. Some landed with a crash, floored by some tremendous
blows; others dropped gently down like sacks of meal; with others, it
would positively appear that some spirit had suddenly seized them by
their ankles and jerked their legs from under them. Many officers were
down, but Colonel Sponge, stuttering and blowing, was still upright. He
was almost the last man in the charge, but not to his shame, rather to
his stumpy legs. At one time it seemed that the assault would be lost.
The effect of the fire was somewhat as if a terrible cyclone were
blowing in the men's faces. They wavered, lowering their heads and
shouldering weakly, as if it were impossible to make headway against the
wind of battle. It was the moment of despair, the moment of the heroism
which comes to the chosen of the war-god.

The colonel's cry broke and screeched absolute hatred; other officers
simply howled; and the men, silent, debased, seemed to tighten their
muscles for one last effort. Again they pushed against this mysterious
power of the air, and once more the regiment was charging. Timothy Lean,
agile and strong, was well in advance; and afterwards he reflected that
the men who had been nearest to him were an old grizzled sergeant who
would have gone to hell for the honour of the regiment, and a pie-faced
lad who had been obliged to lie about his age in order to get into the
army.

There was no shock of meeting. The Twelfth came down on a corner of the
trenches, and as soon as the enemy had ascertained that the Twelfth was
certain to arrive, they scuttled out, running close to the earth and
spending no time in glances backward. In these days it is not discreet
to wait for a charge to come home. You observe the charge, you attempt
to stop it, and if you find that you can't, it is better to retire
immediately to some other place. The Rostina soldiers were not heroes,
perhaps, but they were men of sense. A maddened and badly-frightened mob
of Kickers came tumbling into the trench, and shot at the backs of
fleeing men. And at that very moment the action was won, and won by the
Kickers. The enemy's flank was entirely crippled, and, knowing this, he
did not await further and more disastrous information. The Twelfth
looked at themselves and knew that they had a record. They sat down and
grinned patronisingly as they saw the batteries galloping to advance
position to shell the retreat, and they really laughed as the cavalry
swept tumultuously forward.

The Twelfth had no more concern with the battle. They had won it, and
the subsequent proceedings were only amusing.

There was a call from the flank, and the men wearily adjusted themselves
as General Richie, stern and grim as a Roman, looked with his straight
glance at a hammered and thin and dirty line of figures, which was His
Majesty's Twelfth Regiment of the Line. When opposite old Colonel
Sponge, a podgy figure standing at attention, the general's face set in
still more grim and stern lines. He took off his helmet. "Kim up, the
Kickers!" said he. He replaced his helmet and rode off. Down the cheeks
of the little fat colonel rolled tears. He stood like a stone for a long
moment, and wheeled in supreme wrath upon his surprised adjutant.
"Delahaye, you d—d fool, don't stand there staring like a monkey! Go,
tell young Lean I want to see him." The adjutant jumped as if he were on
springs, and went after Lean. That young officer presented himself
directly, his face covered with disgraceful smudges, and he had also
torn his breeches. He had never seen the colonel in such a rage. "Lean,
you young whelp! you—you're a good boy." And even as the general had
turned away from the colonel, the colonel turned away from the
lieutenant.